Mister_Lich t1_j4szuye wrote
Reply to comment by LilysTheorbo in Dutch Constitution to be amended to ban discrimination based on sexuality or disability by DutchBlob
So in other words "the more desirable places to live are more expensive because demand is huge."
Shocker.
Anyway, just build more housing. There is a direct and obvious connection between NIMBYism and expensive housing prices.
-CrestiaBell t1_j4u1uhc wrote
There's not really a scarcity of houses in America so much as there is an artificial scarcity created by companies that exist solely to buy up houses en masse and hike up their prices.
Mister_Lich t1_j4vn8yh wrote
This is literally just not true. Most houses are not corporate owned. Not even close. It's a few more percent than it was a few years ago.
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You know what can cause this to drop? Building so much housing that you crash the market. Nobody wants to build tons of housing because all the homeowners vote against it because it tanks their equity values. You think that corporations are the big baddy, they aren't, it's HOA's and the fucks in the suburbs and shit that vote against every possible expansion or densification of anything because their primary concern is their equity, not your chances of homeownership. Vote YIMBY's into your local government. That is your only savior.
DeadAssociate t1_j4u6160 wrote
the netherlands has been in the top of most denselypopulated countries for 70 years or so. you cant just build more houses when every square cm is planned for.
RemcoProgrammer t1_j4uh8xg wrote
Except that we have plenty of space. Think of the Netherlands not as a densely populated country, but as a sparsely populated city.
twistedbronll t1_j4uakb9 wrote
We have space. They just build wicked expensive flats there.
Mister_Lich t1_j4vnjse wrote
You can build denser. Build more high-rises.
Yeah, when you run up against literal physical limitations, sometimes you have to choose between either having nice traditional-ish single family homes (or town-houses), or having more apartment/condo complexes - alternatively you cope with sky-high housing prices and a lack of ability for successive generations to have solid housing situations.
Most countries in the world don't have this problem though. The USA reeeeally doesn't.
DeadAssociate t1_j4wu722 wrote
sure we can. but we are a democracy, home ownership is over 60%, and no one is going to vote in any way to let the state take their home.
Mister_Lich t1_j4wzrfj wrote
Who said the state has to do this? Haven't you ever heard of like, selling houses?
Just allow developers to actually buy up land where 500 year old townhouses are and build highrise apartment complexes there. They'll buy out the owners of the land/houses that are willing to sell, and your city expands. This is literally how urbanization works.
You can't just indefinitely preserve all the ancient crap in a city just because it's pretty and then expect the city to never have issues with growth and modernization. Just literally allow people to bulldoze some of this stuff and invest in your city.
DeadAssociate t1_j4x84k4 wrote
to allow this the law needs to change, and this needs a vote. and the majority will vote no out of their best interest.
Mister_Lich t1_j4x8ypw wrote
Right, so it's entirely a self-inflicted issue of simply not being willing to build more housing. That's basically my whole point. Housing crises in the developed world are almost all because people just refuse to allow enough housing to be built, because the existing homeowners don't want to see their equity drop, or even just "stop going up as much," or worse yet, they'll claim it's to preserve historically relevant plots of dirt and bricks, and starve everyone else out.
Japan is a notable exception to this occurrence. They build more housing per capita than most developed countries, and the idea of housing being an investment rather than a commodity is not nearly as common there. As a result their real estate markets have been way flatter than most other developed countries. Also related is their national zoning laws which are amazing and every country should replicate them 1-to-1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
DeadAssociate t1_j4y63k5 wrote
well self inflicted upon the people that cant afford homes by the people that can.
RemcoProgrammer t1_j4uh5f3 wrote
It's not really NIMBYism that we don't build enough, it's (extremely necessary) environmental laws and not having enough builders and building materials. Foreign builders could help if they had a place to sleep between shifts...
Mister_Lich t1_j4vnq1u wrote
This is completely untrue for the USA (this comment chain is talking about the USA - that's mostly what I'm talking about), look up anything to do with the Bay Area and San Francisco when it comes to the legendary NIMBYism in that area. They do things like preserve "historic" laundromats and parking lots to avoid building multi-hundred unit apartment complexes (and of course, a good 20% or more of those would always be relegated for affordable housing - this would do nothing but help the city and its residents.)
No idea about the Netherlands' specific issues, to be fair.
RemcoProgrammer t1_j4vopsq wrote
Ah OK, I was talking about the Netherlands in particular, sorry for the confusion.
Mister_Lich t1_j4vovzm wrote
Np! I realized that this post was actually about the Netherlands so I probably am getting some people in this thread confused lol
s4b3r6 t1_j4u1srx wrote
> Anyway, just build more housing. There is a direct and obvious connection between NIMBYism and expensive housing prices.
One third of houses in my country are empty. In cities, too. The expensive housing doesn't have a lot to do with how many there are.
Mister_Lich t1_j4vmt97 wrote
>One third of houses in my country are empty
Source needed
Some vacancy is required in a healthy market, no vacancies means no supply, but 1/3rd being completely empty and unused sounds pretty unlikely, I'd like to see the source for that number.
s4b3r6 t1_j4voho4 wrote
Mister_Lich t1_j4vr6ky wrote
There are over 2mil dwellings in the Sydney area, this is not 1/3rd, it's like 8%-9%.
Build some more hotels and houses, this is literally Australia's megacity, it's their New York, of course there's huge demand for both permanent and temporary/tourist housing. People will eventually migrate to other areas if the city doesn't figure out how to build enough, and that's fine, too. Migration to and from cities is normal and healthy. New York City hasn't had population growth in like 60 years or some shit because it can't expand much more and isn't a very economically desirable place to live for a lot of people as a result, to say nothing of the midwest cities that have all been seeing their populations drop since the mid 20th century.
If a city has enormous demand, build more supply. That's literally your only solution. Rent controls don't work, it's been tried and tried and tried again. Your one and only solution is to build more. It will take time and people will have to leave the city if they can't afford to stay there. That is normal and that is just what happens. Sydney will learn to cope. Cities don't infinitely grow, sometimes they shrink or stagnate while they figure themselves out.
Moranic t1_j4uic0m wrote
Actually the Netherlands is massively in favor of building more houses, but our industry (notably agriculture) is emitting too much ammonia which is damaging the Natura2000 areas too much. So in many places we legally cannot build anything as it would raise the already too high ammonia levels even higher.
This lockup has caused investors to buy tons of properties because they know demand will rise without supply increasing with it.
[deleted] t1_j4t5t7x wrote
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